Ethan Kaplan On Origin Stories: Pedigree or Passion?
This guest post comes from Ethan Kaplan who blogs at blackrimglasses.com.
Last night at an event I had to introduce myself to a few people and as I’ve been doing since I left WMG, it goes something like:
“I worked as the head of technology at Warner Bros. Records and Warner Music Group until I left in January”
That is a pedigree origin story.
A friend who I was with admonished me however: “Tell the real story!”
Now, the real story I’ve always been a bit embarrassed by, and proud of.
“I ran a fan site for R.E.M. since I was 16, and started working at their label in 2005.”
That is the passion origin story.
This begs the question: what matters most, pedigree or passion? Is it better to be defined by what you did, or why you did it?
I don’t have the answer to that.
But I suppose I’ll have to get used to answering the question of “what do you do?” with “well, when I was 16, I was really bored one evening….”
Interesting dilemma, though, if you can boil it down to two sentences like that you could probably tell both!
I’ve found that if the pedigree story reels them in, they then ask for the passion story.
Of course, when I was running the first major hip hop business-focused blog back in the day, the white person followup was usually, “so do you really listen to hip hop?”
It probably depends on the audience. For some, you need to give them the credential. For others, you need to give them the story.
Living by “why I did it” is a lot more rewarding than living by “what I did”.
As Suzanne comments, context is important here. Some situations warrant a short pedigree intro, for others sharing a bit of the passion makes more sense.
The choice between the two may be best determined by your comfort level and instinct in the moment. Ideally you’re looking for some mutual ground to engage and talk further.
Kudos on your blog Ethan. The recent post on injecting joy into the music experience particularly resonated.